1001 Albums Summary

First album I've heard from Buckley, not a genre I listen to much. After listening, I find the songs quite nice and easy to listen to but I do feel like each song doesn't have many ideas in it. I wouldn't really call this bad but I don't find it all that interesting. Somewhat disappointing. I probably enjoyed "Devil Eyes" the most, honestly because it probably has the most going on out of all of these songs. "Hong Kong Bar" was also quite enjoyable for the exact opposite reason - I was able to enter a sort of trance with how calm the song was. The closer is pretty alright too, introducing some slightly lush instrumentation while remaining upbeat. Easily my least favorite track was "Get On Top" as it felt a bit uncomfortable to me (as well as repetitive).

7/10 Total Listens: 1 (so far) Very different feel from Buckley, of course, which is a reason why I find this website so compelling. First track was fine enough, but the 2nd song was what caught my ear and made me think I might really enjoy this. Some fun tension in the composition that appears and disappears quite quickly but makes "Turkish Song of the Damned" feel just that bit darker, although its outro is a bit dragged out. Another highlight is "Thousands Are Sailing", which has a killer cello(?) riff (for lack of a better word - or is riff the correct word even for non-guitar string instruments?). Some tracks (e.g. "Bottle of Smoke") do kind of feel like they fall a little too much into nonsense Irish babbling for me, but most of the album fortunately avoids this. I'll also say that the B side of the album does kind of blend together for me; everything is either good or okay, but nothing stands out in either direction. Of course, any discussion of this album is incomplete without mentioning "Fairytale of New York", a truly beautiful and quite sad 'Christmas' song. Sure, the setting is Christmas, but it's much more about these characters and their nuanced feelings for one another. Sure, the guy seems terrible, but something about the two of them have kept them together even though they don't seem to want to be on the surface. I'm not here for in-depth discussion, but I felt amiss not to at least give a sentence on this song's lyricism. Its instrumentation is gorgeous as well, of course, which furthers the dissonance of the song as well as making it just a really damn good song.

Total Listens: 3 Well I guess I'm finally being forced to listen to this. On first listen, nothing really grabbed me except for the penultimate track, which is of course very very highly regarded in music nerd circles, and yeah, it pretty much lives up to the hype. The rest of the album sounded a lot happier than I was expecting, though it's possible the darkness is more hidden in the lyrics as is evident in "There is a Light...". There was one other track I really really liked on first listen, "I Know It's Over". It's slow enough to make the build feel quite meaningful and I did really enjoy the lyricism. On second listen, I really just found myself enjoying the songs a bit more. I don't think I have much to say on this other than it's just kind of a fun listen. I guess it does begin to drag in the back half with "The Boy With the Thorn in His Side" and "Vicar in a Tutu", but the last two tracks really do save it.

Total Listens: 1 Not super feeling this. Big Iron is of course great, but as an album it just feels a bit too samey to really love. Some other quite good songs here, but overall feeling pretty lukewarm on this.